Do you feel old and wrinkled? Just 30 minutes of facial exercises which includes puckering and squeezing the cheeks daily can make you look three years younger, reveals a study.

Instead of undergoing anti-ageing skin treatments and care routines, middle-aged women undergoing this non-toxic method can have a younger appearance with fuller upper and lower cheeks and reduce some visible signs of ageing, the study further showed.

“Facial exercises that may be beneficial include those that entail puckering and squeezing the cheeks. There are many muscles that collectively allow movement of the cheeks, and our study showed that building these up makes the upper and lower cheeks look fuller,” said Murad Alam, Professor at the Northwestern University in Chicago, US.

“The exercises enlarge and strengthen the facial muscles, so the face becomes firmer and more toned and shaped like a younger face,” Alam added.

Fat pads present in between the muscle and the skin are responsible for providing firmness to the cheeks and keeping a toned shape of the face.

But as the skin starts ageing, the face pads too gradually becomes thinner.

The sagging of the pads makes the elasticity of the facial skin loose and fall down.

“But if muscle underneath becomes bigger, the skin has more stuffing underneath it and the firmer muscle appears to make the shape of the face more full,” noted Emily Poon, an assistant research professor at the varsity.

“Muscle growth is increasing the facial volume and counteracting the effects of age-related fat thinning and skin loosening,” Poon explained, in the paper published in the journal JAMA Dermatology.

The researchers studied over middle-aged women, aged between 40 to 65 years, who underwent face-to-face 90-minute training sessions from a facial exercise instructor. At home, they continued to do these exercises for a total of 20 weeks.

The US Treasury Department has announced sanctions against five Iranian entities. The Treasury Department said late Thursday the five Iran-based entities were subordinate to a key element of Iran’s ballistic missile programme and the US action targeted Tehran’s “destabilising weapons systems”, reports Xinhua news agency.

As a result, US citizens are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them.

Foreign financial institutions that knowingly facilitate significant transactions for, or persons that provide material or certain other support to, the designated entities risk exposure to sanctions that could sever their access to the US financial system or block their property and property interests under the American jurisdiction.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the US will continue to counter Iran with “additional sanctions”.

Last week, riots broke out in some Iranian cities in protest against price hikes and economic woes.

US President Donald Trump and a number of other American officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, have sided with the protesters.

Iran’s Ambassador to the UN Gholamali Khoshroo on Wednesday slammed the US government’s attempts to intervene in the domestic affairs of the Islamic Republic.

“The current US administration has crossed every limit in flouting rules and principles of international law governing the civilised conduct of international relations,” Khoshroo said in a letter to the UN Security Council and to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

Khoshroo added that Iran expects all states to condemn such dangerous statements and policies and urge the US government to act responsibly and adhere to principles of the UN Charter and international law.

Actor Sonam Kapoor feels there is a need for more films that revolve around women.

Her forthcoming film Veere Di Wedding, also starring Kareena Kapoor Khan, Swara Bhaskar and Shikha Talsania, is themed around a wedding. Kareena will play the part of a bride-to-be in the movie.

Veere Di Wedding looks so different. There should be more such films, this should be the norm,” Sonam told PTI.

“In Hollywood there are many female-oriented films that are such big blockbusters and are entertaining. We don’t have such films in India.”

The actor believes Hindi film industry is 20 years behind when it comes to making female-led commercial stories.

“Julia Roberts was huge in the ’80s and ’90s. Here it was about my dad (Anil Kapoor) and the other actors.The ’90s were about the Khans (Aamir, Shah Rukh and Salman). With our generation, we are atleast getting the opportunity to do that, but we are 20 years behind,” she said.

Sonam, 32, said working alongside a top female actor like Kareena, who also happens to be her good friend, for the first time in a movie was exciting.

“It is easy to communicate especially when it is a chemistry-driven film with four women. Since we are friends, it was a fun experience working with her.”

Directed by Shashanka Ghosh, the film is set for release on May 18.

The Neerja actor also reunites with Saawariya co-star Ranbir Kapoor for Sanjay Dutt biopic.

Sonam said the actor has not changed much over the years.

“I don’t think I have changed either. He is such a fine actor. We just have 10 years of experience. But it was fabulous working with him. We shot in ND studios for Saawariya and for this film we shot at the same place. So it was deja vu.”

Helmed by Rajkumar Hirani, the biopic on Dutt is scheduled for release in March.

Deployment of ‘Environment Marshals’ to check polluting activities and rationalisation of public transportation would be among the slew of measures taken to control pollution in the national capital region.

The decision was conveyed on Thursday by officials of different departments to Lt. Governor Anil Baijal during a review meeting here on combating air pollution.

Baijal also urged city municipal corporations to adopt one common mobile application for registering complaints regarding garbage and waste burning.

CPCB (Central Pollution Control Board) representative informed that SAMEER App of CPCB is functional on which complaints can be lodged. Complaints on this App were being forwarded to agencies concerned, an official statement from the Lt Governor’s office said.

Baijal also directed all agencies to strictly enforce pollution control measures and adhere to the timelines. “He stressed that the efforts must be intensified as considerable distance remains to be traversed before the battle against air pollution can be decisively won,” the statement read.

The meeting was attended by Environment Minister Imran Hussain and other officials.

Actor Nikitin Dheer, best known for playing a negative character in Shah Rukh Khan starrer “Chennai Express”, says such roles have a lot of layers which make them very challenging. Nikitin is currently seen playing Veer Pratap Chauhan, the main antagonist in “Ishqbaaaz”.

Talking about the Star Plus show, Nikitin said in a statement to IANS: “I am very proud to play this character in ‘Ishqbaaaz’. Veer is fun to play. It is very well written and the dialogues come out very well. My co-stars made me feel like one of their own. That made me very comfortable on the set since the first day.”

On doing a negative role again, he said: “I am here to do good work and with negative roles, one has a lot of varieties to bring to the character. Also, they have a lot of layers which make them very challenging and fun to play.”

The ‘run machine’ of India, Indian skipper Virat Kohli is known name in the cricket world today. With each passing day, Virat is scripting a new history. Last year, Virat Kohli shattered many records and currently the cricketer is on the verge of breaking many more.

Virat Kohli is currently at the peak of his cricketing career and with the way he is performing, it seems there is nothing that the Indian captain cannot do with his bat. In the recently revealed list by Business magazine Forbes, Virat was ahead of ace footballer Lionel Messi in terms of brand value. Virat’s unstoppable batting performance on the field is the reason that Royal Challengers Bangalore ‘broke the bank’ to retain him.

In Indian Premier League, Virat was already in the elite list of highest paid players before the IPL Retention 2018. But now RCB had shelled out Rs 17 crore to retain their skipper and by doing so they made him most expensive player in terms of league fee.

Meanwhile, former India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni will once again be seen in his favourite yellow jersey in the Indian Premier League’s (IPL) 2018 season, as the Chennai Super Kings retained the Ranchi stumper along with Suresh Raina and all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja.

Dhoni has been retained for Rs 15 crore while Raina and Jadeja were kept for Rs 11 crore and Rs 7 crore, respectively.

The CSK franchise, back into the IPL fold after serving a two-year ban, has two Right-to-Match options left, which they can use during the IPL auction on January 27 and 28.

Rajasthan Royals, the other franchise to return after a two-year ban, has retained Australia skipper Steve Smith (Rs 12 crore) and surprisingly pushed the likes of star batsman Ajinkya Rahane back into the auction pool.

The other surprise came in the form of Gautam Gambhir, who was sent into the auction pool despite guiding the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to lifting the silverware twice (2012 and 2014).

The Shah Rukh Khan-co-owned franchise retained the West Indian duo of Sunil Narine (Rs 8.5 crore) and Andre Russell (Rs 7 crore).

Similarly, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) released West Indian power-hitter Chris Gayle while retaining India skipper Virat Kohli (Rs 17 crore), South African AB de Villiers (Rs 11 crore) and young Sarfraz Khan (Rs 1.75 crore).

Delhi Daredevils expectedly retained the young Indian duo of Rishabh Pant (Rs 8 crore) and Shreyas Iyer (Rs 7 crore) along with South African all-rounder Chris Morris (Rs 7.1 crore).

Mumbai Indians also went along expected lines retaining their three-time IPL winning skipper Rohit Sharma (Rs 15 crore) along with all-rounder Hardik Pandya (Rs 11 crore) and death-over bowling specialist Jasprit Bumrah (Rs 7 crore).

Rohit guided the Mumbai franchise to IPL titles in 2013, 2015 and 2017.

Sunrisers Hyderabad also sprang a surprise by releasing India opener Shikhar Dhawan and Afghanistan spin sensation Rashid Khan but retained Australian David Warner (Rs 12 crore) along with pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar (Rs 8 crore).

After another dismal 2017 season, Kings XI Punjab retained just left-arm spinner Axar Patel (Rs 6.75 crore) for the next season.

-With IANS inputs

Authorities here are finding it tough to manage the massive rush of pilgrims at the famed Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala, said temple authorities.

The wait for a pilgrim to get a “darshan” is eight hours, said a temple official.

“The rush has reached its peak. All pilgrims have been instructed not to remain at the temple top, once they complete their darshan,” said the official.

For the darshan one has to climb the 18 steps that leads to the sanctum santorum.

It is here that a pilgrim has to wait for several hours, before climbing the steps to have the darshan.

Situated on the Western Ghats at an altitude of 914 metres above sea level, the Sabarimala temple is four km uphill from Pamba in Pathanamthitta district, which is around 100 km from Thiruvananthapuram.

The temple, which bars the entry of women, who have attained puberty, is accessible only on foot from Pamba.

Following the unprecedented rush, starting from January 1, authorities have decided to allow pilgrims to stay back in and around the temple premises from January 10.

Technology giant Microsoft has partnered with Adaptive Biotechnologies to map the genetics of the human immune system, to improve diagnoses of cancers and other diseases.

Adaptive Biotechnologies is a genomics and technology company working to map the genetics of the immune system.

As per the agreement, Microsoft will bring research and large-scale machine learning and cloud computing capabilities to translate genetics of the human immune system, or immunome into simple blood test that can be broadly accessible to people around the world.

“We are very excited and inspired by our collaboration with Adaptive Biotechnologies, as it clearly advances our mission to use cloud and AI technologies to transform healthcare and improve the lives of people around the world,” Peter Lee, Corporate Vice President, AI and Research, Microsoft, said in a statement late on Thursday.

“This collaboration combines powerful sequencing and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies into a revolutionary new capability, and represents the kind of deep collaborative partnership that we live for.

“We are incredibly proud to bring our best people and AI capabilities together with Adaptive in this joint quest.” Lee added.

“Artificial Intelligence represents one of technology’s most important priorities and healthcare is perhaps AI’s most urgent application.

“Partnering with Adaptive Technologies to decode the human immune system,” Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft said in a tweet.

The immune system is nature’s most finely-tuned diagnostic as it routinely scans and reads any signal of disease – such as a cancer cell or an infectious agent – in the body, and holds the genetic code that can give insights into detecting these diseases.

“Some conditions like cancer or autoimmune disorders can be difficult to diagnose, but this universal map of the immune system will enable earlier and more accurate diagnosis of disease, potentially helping physicians to connect the dots to understand the relationship between disease states and eventually lead to a better understanding of overall human health.” said Chad Robins, President, CEO and Co-Founder of Adaptive Biotechnologies.

The collaboration is a part of Microsoft’s Healthcare NExT initiative, launched in 2017 to maximise the ability of AI and cloud computing to accelerate innovation in the healthcare industry, advance science through technology, and turn the lifesaving potential of next discoveries into reality.

TV presenter Davina McCall says she secretly messages wrestler-actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson “all the time” and even wants to marry him.

McCall, 50, thinks Johnson seems like the “nicest guy” and she wants him to propose, even though he has a long-term pregnant girlfriend Lauren Hashian. “I think Dwayne Johnson is hardworking, gives more than is expected, funny… I want to meet him. He’s so big, I’d have to climb up his thigh,” McCall told thesun.co.uk.

She added: “I have a blue tick next to my name so I’m sort of thinking, do you think Dwayne Johnson is going to look at his tweets and go, ‘Oh hang on, there’s a blue tick from a British girl, I’m gonna click on her. And oh, she seems like a nice person, I’m going to answer her’.”

McCall split from Matthew Robertson last year after 17 years of marriage. Johnson, meanwhile, is expecting his first child with Hashian. The two have been dating since 2007.

Islamabad’s failure to stop terrorist attacks on India or take action against Lakshar-e-Taiba leader Hafeez Saeed were not factors behind the US suspending most military assistance to Pakistan, State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert has said.

“To my knowledge, that (aid freeze) has nothing to do with that,” she said on Thursday when asked at a news briefing here if the US was also motivated to take the action by the cross-border terrorism against India and the 2008 terror strike on Mumbai masterminded by Saeed.

“We have certainly expressed our concern about the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks being let out of house arrest in Pakistan. We’ve been very clear about our displeasure with that individual being let go, and that’s why we like to remind people that there is a $10 million ‘Rewards for Justice’ program out for him,” she said.

The US was concerned about the risks to its own personnel in Afghanistan from groups targeting them.

Nauert named the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network among terrorist organisations against whom Pakistan has to take “decisive action” for lifting the freeze of the delivery of military equipment and transfer security-related funds.

Those groups “continue to find sanctuary inside Pakistan as they plot to destabilise Afghanistan and also attack the US and allied personnel”, she said.

The freeze announced on Thursday was in addition to the $255 million in foreign military assistance that the Trump administration said in August it was withholding, she said.

She noted that Pakistan selectively acted against some terror organisations.

“The security services have been effective in combating the groups that target Pakistani interests such as Al Qaeda, IS (Islamic State) and the Pakistani Taliban,” she added.

Ditch the box of sweets or dry fruits as wedding favours, and experiment with not just a range of gifts but creativity and customisation as well, say experts.

Kunal Rai, Head-Events and Weddings, Tamarind Global, and Inayat Khubchandani, Innaz Communique, have some ideas:

1. Scarf: Items that keep your guests warm and fuzzy are not only practical, they are thoughtful too. Pashmina scarfs, handmade shawls or mulmul razai are perfect for fall or winter weddings.

You can customise the shawls with the initials of the guest. During summer, the pashmina fabric can be replaced with mulmul and summer prints.

2. Premium chocolates: Sweeten the deal and treat your guests to fine, delicate and select chocolate. You can even get customised chocolates that are monogrammed with couples initials or the wedding logo.

3. Leather goods: Some trendy and practical favours which have been quite frequent at recent weddings are leather gifts such as monogrammed travel pouches and customised passport holders.

4. Kitchen items: Sets of cups, tableware or a classic teapot — they can all serve as contemporary, practical and usable gifts.

5. Personal care: Personal care kits are often customised and given on the first day of the celebrations so that guests at destination weddings can make use of these instead of the hotel toiletries.

6. Favours for wedding functions: Another trend is to integrate favours into the wedding functions and themes. For instance, the Mehendi function can have an entire designated area where guests could choose giveaways that were relevant to the function. You can have Kolhapuri chappals, bangles and dupattas.

Mark Sifneos cancelled out Marcelinho’s goal to give Kerala Blasters FC a vital draw (1-1) against FC Pune City in the Indian Super League season four battle at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium here on Thursday.

The victory helped Kerala Blasters, which sees the return of David James as head coach, take the eighth spot in the ISL points table while Pune City moved on top.

Kerala Blasters, last year’s finalists, are still winless in three matches but home fans will be happy to see a more direct approach bring some positive moments in a match that could have gone either way.

Marcelinho played a neat give-and-go with Ashique Kuruniyan, opened his body towards his left side and produced a neat finish in the 33rd minute to give the visitors a well-deserved lead.

But Kerala’s equaliser, which came in the 73rd minute, was equally well worked.

Courage Pekuson escaped his marker down the left and made the right decision to cut it back for Sifneos. The Dutchman took it first time with his left foot – kept it low – and applied enough power to beat goalkeeper Vishal Kaith.

The first belonged to Pune, and suspended coach Ranko Popovic, watching from the stands, will be disappointed that his side were not a few goals ahead at the break.

Pune started in thunderous fashion, with Adil Khan’s header across the face of the goal going abegging.

Then Emiliano Alfaro took a sharp shot after a quick turn before making a decoy run down the right to allow Marcelinho space through the middle.

The resulting shot was wide though. The pressure was telling when Kerala goalkeeper Subhasish Roy Chowdhury spilled a harmless shot only to see Lalruatthara save blushes with a timely clearance.

Sandesh Jhingan’s excellent defence came to the fore again when he had to stop two fine chances for the visitors. He blocked a speeding Alfaro first before stopping Jonathan Lucca who was also through on goal. Two excellently timed challenges personified his abilities.

The second half was not as open as the first, with Kerala’s defence tightening after what must have been a fiery half-time team talk. In fact, in the last quarter of an hour, they produced some scintillating football going forward.

Barely two minutes after it was 1-1, Pekuson made a run down the right, his dummy beat his marker and the rebound from the impending pass found Sifneos. This time though, Kaith came off his line quickly to smother the ball.

But it was the chance in the 88th minute that really should have given Kerala three points. Pekuson, playing in a free role, bulldozed through the middle but his fizzing shot went wide from about 10 yards out.

The crowd held its breath, expecting a winner, but that’s as far as it got.

Apple users spent a record $300 million on purchasing or downloading apps and games from App Store on January 1 — the biggest ever since App Store’s launch in July 2008.

During the week starting on Christmas Eve, customers spent over $890 million in purchases or downloaded apps in that seven-day period, the Cupertino-based iPhone maker said on Friday.

“We are thrilled with the reaction to the new App Store and to see so many customers discovering and enjoying new apps and games,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing.

“In 2017 alone, iOS developers earned $26.5 billion a” more than a 30 per cent increase over 2016,” Schiller added.

Since the App Store’s launch, iOS developers have earned over $86 billion.

Pokemon GO went back to the top of the App Store charts on December 21 with the introduction of new Augmented Reality (AR) features, built on Apple’s ARKit framework for more detailed and realistic gameplay.

“Customers are now enjoying close to 2,000 ARKit-enabled apps spanning every category on the App Store,” Apple said.

Among the most popular AR titles are games such as “CSR Racing 2”, “Stack AR” and “Kings of Pool”; shopping apps like Amazon and Wayfair; education apps including “Night Sky” and “Thomas & Friends Minis”; and social media apps including Pitu and Snapchat.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s personal challenge for 2018 is to “fix Facebook” when it comes to dealing with abuse and hate, fake news or interference by nation-states on the platform.

In a post late Thursday, Zuckerberg said the world feels anxious and divided and Facebook has a lot of work to do when it comes to protect its over 2 billion-strong community.

“My personal challenge for 2018 is to focus on fixing these important issues. We won’t prevent all mistakes or abuse, but we currently make too many errors enforcing our policies and preventing misuse of our tools. If we’re successful this year then we’ll end 2018 on a much better trajectory,” he posted.

Facebook last year told US lawmakers that 126 million of its users might have seen content produced and circulated by Russian operatives during the 2016 US election.

Facebook, along with Twitter, has also been warned of sanctions if it fails to provide all the necessary information to a British Parliamentary committee investigating Russian interference in the European Union referendum.

Facebook has time until January 18 to hand over information the committee has requested.

According to Zuckerberg, the current issues touch on questions of history, civics, political philosophy, media, government and technology.

“I’m looking forward to bringing groups of experts together to discuss and help work through these topics,” he said.

The Facebook CEO also said he will “make sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent”.

Facebook recently introduced Messenger Kids for under-13 children to video chat and message with family and friends when they can’t be together in person.

Joining the chorus against the messaging app exclusively for kids from Facebook, British Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt warned the social media giant to stay away from his children.

“Facebook told me they would come back with ideas to prevent underage use of their product, but instead they are actively targeting younger children.

“Stay away from my kids please Facebook and act responsibly!” Hunt tweeted.

Rolled out in the US for the moment, Messenger Kids is a stand-alone app that will be available on kids’ tablets or smartphones but can be controlled from a parent’s Facebook account.

“Not sure this is the right direction at all,” Hunt tweeted.

Britain recently said it will set the minimum standards for the content for younger users that social media giants, including Facebook and Twitter, have on their platform.

Mumbai Rockets trumped Awadhe Warriors 3-2 (4-1 on points) to stay alive in the Premier Badminton League (PBL) at the BBD UPBA here on Thursday.

Going into the final encounter of the evening, the Mumbai trump men’s doubles duo of Lee Yong Dae/Tan Boon Heong beat Awadhe’s Hendra Setiawan/Or Chin Chung 15-13, 15-12 to register their second win of the season.

The win gave them crucial four points that took them to fifth on the table from eighth with a total of 10 points, while Awadhe’s one point from fixture proved enough for them to consolidate their place at the top of the table with 12 points.

In the super-match of the day, World No.3 Kidambi Srikanth overcame a stiff challenge from South Korea’s World No.5 Son Wan Ho to pick-up a thrilling 15-13,13-15, 15-4 victory and reduce Awadhe’s deficit.

Srikanth who was on a two-match losing streak did well to pick up the win and log in a crucial point for his team.

In the women’s singles match, World No.10 Saina Nehwal pulled off a stunning 8-15, 15-10,15-13 victory over World No.11 Beiwen Zhang of US to keep Awadhe afloat.S aina, who is coming into the match on the back of a defeat against World No.1 Tai Tzu Ying proved to be no match against Beiwen in the opening game.

The US shuttler was using the length of the court perfectly tormenting the Indian with her superb cross-court drops and smashes and raced to the victory in the opening game in no time.

But Saina known for her resilience got back into the match and even though Beiwen was leading in the initial phases of second game, the Indian slowly turned the tides and went into break leading 8-7.

She did not allow Beiwen any chance post the interval and wrapped up the game to restore parity.

In the final game, Saina was in no mood to let go off the opportunity and pounced on her opponent before bringing all her experience into play. She made full use of the tiring US player and went into the break with a lead of 8-4.

After the change of ends, even though Beiwen troubled the Indian with her impeccable net-play and saved three match points, it was Saina who eventually went on to win the match to send the packed stadium into rapturous celebration.

Earlier in the day, Sameer Verma picked up a comfortable 15-6,15-14 straight games victory against his compatriot Harshit Aggarwal to give Mumbai a huge 2 (-1) over Awadhe in the five match duel.

The young Harshit replacing Parupalli Kashyap in the line-up could not mount any serious challenge on his senior pro and went meekly in the opening game.

He did try to make a comeback in the second game and even though he was looking in better touch and took the game to wire, it was Sameer who sealed the deal with a smash.

In the first match of the day, mixed doubles pair of Lee Yong Dae/Gabriela Stoeva pulled off a major coup by beating Christinna Pedersen/Tang Chun Man 15-10, 14-15, 15-7 to give Mumbai the early lead into the tie. The match also saw Awadhe getting penalised with a point as it was their trump match.

This marks the end of the Lucknow leg and the PBL now moves to Chennai.

Prime accused in the Bhima Koregaon violence, Sambhaji Bhide on Friday dismissing all charges of rioting against him and said that he was a victim of political conspiracy.

Speaking to a news channel in Sangli, Maharashtra, Bhide who is the President of Shivjagar Pratisthan said false allegations against had been leveled against him

“I have no role to play in the riots… There is a conspiracy to vitiate the atmosphere. I never tried to divide communities and I am just a victim of political conspiracy,” Bhide said in Marathi.

Bhide along with Hindu Janjagruti Samiti chief Milind Ekbote are accused of perpetrating the Bhima Koregaon violence against Dalits in which a youth was killed.

On January 2, the Pimpri police (Pune) lodged a complaint against Bhide and Ekbote while the Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh, a Dalit party headed by Prakash Ambedkar – the grandson of Bharat Ratna BR Ambedkar, called for a ‘peaceful Maharashtra shutdown’ to express anger over the Pune incident.

On Thursday, Prakash Ambedkar called on Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis demanding the arrest and prosecution of Bhide and Ekbote.

However, Bhide rebuffed Prakash Ambedkar’s charges and demanded a thorough investigation into the matter.

“Prakash Ambedkar blamed me for the conspiracy which is completely wrong, demand the government to investigate this matter thoroughly, strong punishment must be given to whoever is guilty,” Bhide said in a statement.

The disturbances erupted in the village of Koregaon-Bhima on January 1 during the 200th anniversary celebrations of the Anglo-Maratha War of January 1, 1818, between the army of Peshwa Bajirao II and a small force of the East India Company that comprised a large number of Dalits.

Several lakhs of Dalits had congregated around the Victory Pillar (Vijay Stambh) erected by the British in Sanaswadi village when suddenly stone pelting started, allegedly by some right-wing groups carrying saffron flags.

In the ensuing clashes, more than 30 vehicles, including buses, police vans and private vehicles, were torched or damaged and one youth, Rahul Fatangale, 28 of Nanded lost his life.